The students say the most difficult subjects are foreign languages and math but I always felt the opposite. Those were the courses I would pick up to gather more credit hours of A without expending too much effort. This was because all you had to do was acquire a system and practice using it. There was nothing to read or write and nothing to throw you into existential doubt.
You were not dependent upon the library and the resources and functions it might or might not have. The courses had prerequisites and if you had taken the perequisite and were doing the exercises, you would understand every word and concept without difficulty, which was not the case in other classes. That made these courses very relaxing.
But these are my students’ most difficult courses, as they require exactitude. Which were your most difficult courses, and why?
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
As an older student, the courses that got me down were the ones that required memorizing facts and taking multiple choice tests. I even managed to flunk a health course! A particular problem was not being able to bring myself to give the expected answer when I knew it was oversimplified or just plain wrong.
But I was never a “good student” in the usual sense.
I do not believe I ever took a course like that. I learned to take multiple choice tests, got very high GRE scores, etc., but that was considered a separate skill from academic skills. I really think multiple choice and memorization are murder for most students and ruin them for other courses. They can be a good kind of exercise for good students because they do train your mind in a certain way, but otherwise …
In early undergrad, I struggled with physics and calculus even though I had taken both in high school. I was vain about my ability to do well at school without working at it very hard, and didn’t deal well with a situation where I actually needed to work at it to understand things.
Once I got past that, I continued to struggle with anything that involved writing. This was mainly a confidence problem. I did not feel I had the right to make assertions about things and so I would get stuck all the time. Sometimes I still struggle with this.
Language classes, though, are easy for the reason you say — it’s all about figuring out the system and using it. I dabbled in so many different languages and didn’t really master any (except that I can read French and Spanish if I have lots of time and a dictionary) because it wasn’t important enough to me to put the work in to do so, but it was a lot of fun. I loved figuring out the logic of grammar; and learning new words and thinking about how they related to similar-but-different words in other languages; and looking at literal translations of idioms and thinking about those; and things like that.
One thing that helped was that I discovered, with foreign languages, it works a lot better for me to take them as short, intensive courses — like a 6 or 8-week summer course when you’re focusing hard on that one thing — rather than as a 12 or 13 week semester course when you’re spacing the work out more doing a lot of other things at the same time. It was easier for me to retain things and thus to make progress learning a language when I took these shorter courses.
Foreign languages, it is true, I have never taken a beginning one in a non intensive situation, i.e. in fewer than six contact hours per week.
Right to make assertions, that has been my writing problem since Reeducation, as we know.
Idea of working to learn something, that explains a lot and is new to me. But it explains a lot.
I think also, part of it may have been that I literally did not know what to do about this problem of not understanding things right away, because I was so unused to it. I’m sure there were resources available like tutoring or office hours or things like that and it just didn’t occur to me to ask for help or even to try something different than what I was already doing. Part of that was not having any practice at solving such a problem, and part of it also in a self-identity as someone who doesn’t need help with school ever. Both of those things were barriers.
It’s too bad because I actually liked physics and calculus both, when I wasn’t hating them for being hard. 🙂
I am glad for your blog because it has helped me understand my writing problem. Solving it is another matter and sometimes I wonder if I am permanently disabled on this.
Solving a problem: I think that was virtually all we did in K-12, solve problems. That was why I knew things took work.
Writing problem: honestly I fear mine is a reading problem. My hypothesis is that if I enjoyed reading literature more than I do, or cared about it more than I do, and so on. I do appreciate it but once I discovered I could be really good at interpreting it I had accomplished what I needed to accomplish for me personally and was ready to move on into something more activist (my law plan). I like abstraction and in the right circumstances would happily be a literary scholar but I want to read other things and engage in other activities.
So I keep trying to save time, move ahead, spit out these articles without having the patience to really stare at the texts to the degree you have to, and it does not work. I need to put in more time, but every time I think of putting in more time my immediate thought is, gosh, I am writing this and will have to then place it, and hope it is cited and so on, and hope it means I get promoted or get a job, and all of this is time and effort I could be using toward the LSAT.
I know the answer to that and I keep trying to talk myself out of those feelings but actually I should probably just put them on my desk like a pet, because I cannot afford to move and I really need to get something done, even if I also take the LSAT. Write and enjoy has to be the lemma. I am in a better situation than you because I did not use to have the writing problem.
Making (analytical) assertions, though, you do this all the time and I think you can do it in academic writing as well.
It really is true what they say, you have to keep going. Back when I used to just write, I was not burdened with self doubt and I am guessing that is what you have to put aside. At least for the 2.5 hours per day you spend writing. Tell yourself you can engage in self doubt later in the day, just not right now.
Making (analytical) assertions, though, you do this all the time and I think you can do it in academic writing as well.
Wow, you are right, I totally do, why would academic writing be so damned different? Honestly, it’s in academic writing specifically that I have been trained, or trained myself, to be so timid.
What I want to succeed at, anyway, it isn’t FOR or IN academia, but only resembles it and uses some of the techniques I learned there, so maybe if I can just train myself to think of it as being Something Different then I can bypass this whole problem. Because honestly I don’t care about academia anymore or want to be an academic anyway (that is a lie, I do, but it’s not my goal anymore, so there).
Yes. In academia there is so much on the line, your paper is about your grade and your tenure and all of this, so you have to formulate it right to get it in a first tier journal and hope it gets cited enough and so on and so forth. If, instead, you just think of it as a document that needs to exist, I think this is a lot better.
This is excellent advice, thank you. A document that needs to exist. Those are pretty easy to write. It’s when they have all those other meanings that it gets screwy… so I just need to actually do some work that only matters for itself, and then once I’ve proved I can do it that way, I’ll have a writing sample and all and so I should be ok.
I wish I could think of something as useful for your situation but… yeah. I can see how the writing would suck if you don’t really care about analyzing literature.
Yes, document that needs to exist is something I should remember more often.
Me: you know, I say that about not having literary analysis as my #1 passion, but on the other hand I do love theory and I am freakin’ good at all this and literary analysis is a cushy job.
It is not the project that is difficult, it is what one transfers onto it. If we can just remember this, we will be all right.